Setting Free the Bears

  But the memory was enough to spoil my last hour of traveling darkness. For the next hour before daylight, it was my turn to see things off the side of the road - like the night Siggy had called the blackout to mind, and we saw things come to the roadside to watch us.

  Once, I thought I saw - standing motionless in the deep vines - an old bull oryx, with moss on his horns. Once, more startling, an eagle in a chainmail suit of pieplates - standing as if he'd grown there, or had fallen down wingless and taken up roots, years ago.

  We crossed the Murz River at Krieglach, with the daylight hitting us, and a suddenly strong wind came off the river and blew the bike out over the center line of the road. Gallen lurched us back to our side of the crown, and the wind fell in behind our backs.

  But it's the frotting gale of the world, I thought. If it's not blowing against you, head-on, it's behind you and shoving you faster than you want to go. It even does the steering, maybe.

  But I kept it to myself, and let Gallen think she was our pilot.

  What Gallen Did, Finally

  SHE STOPPED US for a long and gluttonous brunch at the top of the Semmering Pass. Somehow she'd wound us south, then east and even a little north, so that although we now were southeast of Waidhofen, we were far enough east to be almost straightaway south of Vienna, and straightaway north of either Italy or Yugoslavia - though we had no plans to leave the country; or, that is, she had no plans as such. I made it clear I had no plans at all, when we discussed our money - we had maybe two weeks' worth, of traveling as we were. I did figure that much of our plans. That if we bought no more than one meal a day, and stayed far enough in the country to fish for another - slept out and never bought a room - we'd make it two weeks, fuel and food, and then there'd have to be a job.

  And jobs meant not leaving Austria. What with the problems of working permits for foreigners, which we'd be if we went out.

  That talk was good for mind-occupying, and I'd have gotten along all right if we hadn't been up on the pass at noontime, when the church bells all through the Semmering Valley so formally announced it was noon.

  When Siggy gets to Kaprun, I thought - where most of his family retreated to, at one time or another. And I saw old Watzek-Trummer with the crude, prone box.

  'Don't you want another beer, Graff?' Gallen said.

  And I said, 'He's there now. I should be too.'

  'Come on, Graff,' she said.

  But I could only think that the old Trummer had been in on too many burials to take on the last one alone. And that was just too sickish-sweet a thought to have in the touristy Semmering Pass Motel and Restaurant, where they piped in the Old World music - to quiver us over our soup.

  So Gallen suggested that I learn to drive the bike, since both of us should know. And she led me out of the restaurant and wound us northwest into the valley. Then we climbed up higher than the Semmering Pass, to Vois, where I bought two bottles of white wine and a butter pat.

  We found a pine-needled bank of the fast black Schwarza River, out of tiny Singerin Village. There was room to practice driving; there was running water to chill the wine, and get some fish for Freina Gippel's pan; and we were well off the road, to be sure of a private night.

  I started driving down the bank - with Gallen up behind me, saying, 'Keff said it's the feel for the gears that comes first.' But I wasn't really listening to her. All of a sudden, it was broad Todor Slivnica beneath me, and worldly Bijelo was saying, 'Corner sharp left, Vratno, my boy.' And then I was pelting up and down the bank, with Gallen meekly saying something, but it was Gottlob Wut who was doing my driving, dictating loud and clear: 'See? Like this!' And then I was mounting a marble staircase, when I was the hunted Siegfried Schmidt, special messenger and alley traveler of Old Vienna. But I hit some root that jarred me forward on the gas tank, with poor Gallen sliding up snug behind me - and I had to stretch my toes back to reach the gear lever. Then I saw again the down-falling orchard road, and Siggy said, 'First-gear work, here, Graff. You've got to work it.'

  I was aware of my knees up under the handlebars, hooking me forever on the old beast - and a honey-gunked crown of bees settling on my smarting head - when I went tearing through our unmade campsite and rode right over our rucksack.

  'God, Graff,' said Gallen. 'You're a bit out of control.'

  But when she got off behind me and came around front, probably wondering why I hadn't shut the engine off, she must have got a look at my dreaming eyes. 'Oh now, Graff. Come on. That's enough,' she said.

  And when I didn't answer her, and just kept raising the idle higher and higher - letting the bike scream itself silly beneath me - she tapped the kill button and shut me off. The noise died. 'Show me,' she said, 'how you catch fish, Graff.'

  So I did, though the river was too fast here - with no good bank to get off, and get down in the water. I was hooking and losing them for a while, before I eked out three smallish trout - light enough to jerk right up on the shore.

  'Well,' I said, 'it's always a good thing to go to bed a little hungry.'

  'Why?' said Gallen.

  'And on two bottles of wine too,' I said, and grinned.

  But she pouted away from me, skittish again.

  They were good trout, though. They made Gallen sneeze - a snit of a sneeze, half caught in her hand. And I said, 'Ha!'

  'What do you mean, "Ha"?' she said.

  And I reminded her: '"Letting off a thoroughly good sneeze is a natural, spontaneous, frank action of which some people really are a little afraid."' And stopped there, to see what she'd do.

  She said, 'Graff.' And spilled her wine.

  'There's more,' I said. 'There's a second bottle in the river.'

  'Thought of everything, didn't you?' she said, but not angrily.

  So I thought a bit more, in my way - an immediate sort of plotting. Remembering how Siggy had bought the two sleeping bags at the same place, at the same time; how they made a pair, and zipped either separate or together. They could make a double.

  It's the double for you, Gallen, I thought. But it wasn't even dark yet, and we still had a bottle to go, in the river.

  So I said, 'Gallen, fetch us that second bottle, and I'll build up this fire. It cuts down on mosquitoes, you know.' But there weren't any mosquitoes, anyway, thanks be. We were too high up; it was cold.

  And would be colder after dark, I knew, looking at the winter sort of river, that even in summer was hard to imagine without frills of thin ice on the outskirts of the current, and shuddering deer coming down off the bank for a lick, picking their hooves up high and shaking them, as if deer could get cold-footed. Though maybe they can.

  Anything's possible, Siggy said somewhere. And I had a sort of seizure at the fire, bending down.

  If anything's possible, Siggy could get lost on the train; they could send him to Munich or Paris. I saw Siggy stacked upright in a warehouse in Paris.

  Or, I thought, there could be trouble in Ernst Watzek-Trummer's tiny rooms. Surely, he'll put Siggy in the room with the racer; and there's sure to be candles. A candle was burning too close to the Grand Prix racer. And they surely left a bit of gas in the tank, to prevent the tank from rusting. I saw the Gasthof Enns blow up.

  But I had no feelings about any of the things I saw, seeing them all in the time it took an ash to rise from the fire, or in the time it took Gallen to fetch the wine. I was just numb to reacting to any of it, even to the ashes I tossed in the air. They floated down straight; there wasn't any wind.

  So the gale of the world dies down at night, I thought. And I thought: So what if it does? Because I had totally benumbed myself with either too many related or unrelated things.

  And all this happened in the time it took ashes to rise, or Gallen to get the wine - or it seemed to; although it was somehow dark before I was aware that Gallen had brought back the wine, and drunk half of it herself. And dark by the time I said, 'It's time to fix the sleeping bag.' The bag, singular, I said - because I was plotting for us in the double.
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  'I've already done it,' said Gallen. It, she said - singular. And I realized how she'd zipped them together - perhaps, to make things easier for me. Out of pity, I hoped not.

  I went down to the river and washed the fish off my teeth. Then I crept to the bag, which Gallen was warming. But she was dressed. That is: still the corduroy slacks, and her blouse. At least she'd taken her bra off; I saw where she'd tried to hide it under her jacket, just outside the bag.

  Little things make a difference, I'm sure.

  But when I slipped in beside her, she said, 'Goodnight Graff.' Before I'd even stretched out! And I'd been discreet enough to leave my miserable, sagging boxer shorts on.

  The river was so fast it made a racket. And frog tones came up, across the river. There's always a swamp where you least expect it.

  I was thinking like that - little philosophies popping up all by themselves. Gallen had her back to me - balled, with her knees drawn up. 'Why, you must be tired, Gallen,' I said, bright and snappy.

  'Yes, very, goodnight,' she said again - faking a groggy voice, as if she'd fallen into an instant sleep. So I just pushed toward her, my shoulder against the warm back of her blouse - and she stiffened. 'You took your clothes off,' she accused.

  'I've got my hangies on,' I said.

  'Your what?' said Gallen.

  'My hangies,' I told her. 'My boxer shorts.'

  For a moment I thought she'd call for a light to look at my miserable hangies; I would have expired for the shame. She sat up in the bag.

  But she said, 'Isn't it a lovely night, Graff?'

  'Oh yes,' I said, crouching back in my corner of the bag - just waiting for her to lie down again.

  'And isn't the river loud?' said Gallen.

  'Oh yes,' I said, in my bored way. I just lurked in my part of the bag for her. I watched how her blouse was fluffled by the wind.

  And I remember waiting a long time for her to lie down, and finally getting myself sleepy because she sat up so long. I thought: She's probably going to put her bra back on.

  So I let myself be carried away with the water in the fast, black, winter river. I dozed downstream; I woke for short spurts and swam against the current. But always restfully, without any struggle, I let myself be coaxed into letting it carry me - past towns brightly lit over the water; paddling past a typical sort of sawmill, with pitch-smelling logs jamming up along the bank; past young girls doing their sheer laundry. And then I was traveling, muffled, through steep riverbanks of snow, and it was almost dark, or almost light, and the deer were coming down to drink. A great buck with a harem of does all meekly herded after him; the buck looked, I admit, a bit like the oryx. He dared walking out on the thin frills of ice offshore. He eased down his great weight; lightly, he placed his carefully aimed, sharp hooves. The herd of does brushed warmly together. I stopped floating by; I treaded water in place.

  The does brushed too loudly together, I thought. But it was Gallen, sitting up above me - getting into her frotting bra, no doubt. Except that her legs behaved foolishly beside me in the bag. She is bicycle-pedaling in this bag, I thought. What next? She's getting into her chainmail pants, which are padlocked. This girl takes no chances.

  But then she slipped into the bag, out long alongside me, and I felt her knee draw up and lightly touch my hand.

  She'd taken off her clothes! I faked sleep.

  'Graff?' Gallen said, and her feet clapped like hands round my ankle.

  I squiggled a little toward her, still sleeping. Of course.

  'You, Graff,' she said. 'Wake up, please.' But except for our feet touching now, she held off my tummy with her hands. Then she moved; she was touching me nowhere. And then she came down from the roof of the bag on top of me; it was her hair, unbraided and falling loose, that fell over me first. Our skin touched very hot or cold; we were flush in a moment. I felt the ice frill break from the bank and cast the great buck adrift.

  Gallen said, 'Wake up now, please.' And hugged herself so tight to me that I couldn't move.

  'I'm awake,' I said, down in my throat. But I gurgled so meekly, I tried to get my neck off her shoulder bone so she'd be sure to hear me.

  But before I could croak again, she crawled down on me a bit and kissed over my mouth. So I gurgled again. Her face was wet against mine; she was crying down over me, of all things.

  I was confused, I confess. I said, 'Don't do me any favors - if it's just because you feel sorry for me.'

  'I don't, at all,' she said - fierce for her.

  'You don't?' I said, hurt - and held her at elbow's length off my chest. Her hair covered her face and mine. Then she kneed me and I doubled up into her, where her body seemed to know I'd be coming - because she caught my shoulders and swung herself off me, and brought me down over her.

  Now she was crying out loud and I kissed over her mouth to stop it. We rolled to get leg room in the frotting bag.

  I felt obliged to - I said, 'I love you, Gallen, really.' And she told me the same.

  It was the only part that felt at all forced - or seemed remembered from a history of necessary prefixes that we didn't use quite naturally between us.

  She tied her hair around my neck; she bound my head on her chest - so high and thin and fragile, I thought I'd break through it and fall inside her. I closed one eye on the pulse in her throat; it was running light and fast.

  Like the winter river, bearing downstream the daring buck who rode the ice floe that melted beneath him; his does ran apace with him, safe on the shore.

  And Gallen said, 'What are these? What did you call them?'

  'Hangies,' I said, but softly. I wouldn't, for this world, have interrupted her pulse.

  'Well then,' she said (and her hip bone jabbed me; she was turning under me), 'these of mine are called huggies.' No more tears, but she was stalling. Then she said, 'Take them off.'

  I thought: If only a poor soul could see in this frotting bag.

  But when I looked, I saw the buck, in the balance - his ice cake almost gone beneath him.

  And if I hooked my thumbs just over the front of Gallen's waist and touched down the heels of my hands where her hips began - and if I squeezed, hard, - my middle fingers touched, or seemed to, on her backbone. So I lifted her.

  And she babbled, as if she were blurting it out in midstream of the running, winter river, 'You, Graff, where did you put my huggies, you - they're bought new for this trip.'

  Then she lifted herself when I lifted her. The does ran in step.

  Gallen said, 'You, Graff!' And something squeaked in her throat, an inch behind her pulse and stepping it up.

  I saw the buck's hard forehoof break through the ice; his chest fell first and split the lace-thin cake in two. He floated down; he passed towns brightly lit over the water, and sawmills smelling thick with pitch - the river dark and musty with slabs of bark. He emerged between spotless banks of snow, saw his does wanting him ashore. He took an easy stroke or two, in no hurry, brushing the frills of ice that fingered out into the current.

  I was confused again. I held my breath, for I'd stopped treading water and had sunk too long ago. I got my footing on the blanket-soft river bottom. As I pushed off, the buck reached shore.

  Then I sneezed, of all things. I had surfaced.

  From out of the sawmill smell of the bag, Gallen brought her hands against my ears and rang my head. The buck staggered, dizzy, up the bank. Gallen kissed over my mouth, and my head cleared. Solidly ashore now, the buck loped for the warm does.

  Then Gallen let her hands fall lightly away from my ears, my pulse came down, and the only real sounds came back to me.

  The river storming along. And frog tones from the swamp that you'd least expect to find here.

  What Gallen Did, Again

  I WOKE UP early, feeling guilty that I'd slept at all. Because I knew that Ernst Watzek-Trummer had spent the night at elbow height above his kitchen table, had even outlasted the dishwashers downstairs in the Gasthof Enns.

  Gallen was alr
eady awake, inching about for her huggies and trying to snare her bra, outside, without my seeing any of her. Thanks be, she took my guilty look for herself. Because she said, 'Graff, it's all right, I feel fine.' And she tried to look very gay - but not at me; her eyes shiny and shying away.

  So I said, 'Just so you're fine, then.' To keep her thinking I'd been thinking of her. Then I did think of her, and kissed her, and started to hunch myself out of the bag, very lively.

  But Gallen said, 'Wait, your hangies are right here.' She turned her back so I wouldn't have to contort myself down deep in the sweet, pitch-smelling bag.

  'This bag could stand some air,' I said.

  'Is that me?' she said. 'Do I smell like that too?'

  'Well,' I said, and we both looked around. I was hoping for some small, unusual animal to come on the scene, or a wild-colored bird, about which I could say, 'Heavens, Gallen. Would you look at that.' And thereby change the subject neatly. But I saw nothing except the dew-covered motorcycle and the river, heaped in fog. The morning air was cold.

  'Let's have a swim,' I said bravely.

  But she didn't want to get out of the bag until I'd fetched her the bra. Which she wouldn't ask me for, either, so I popped out and groped around for it, finding it and holding it aloft. 'Why, what's this odd article?' I said.

  'OK, give it here,' said Gallen, hair over her eyes. Then I went down to the river and waited for her.

  Lord, the water was fierce; it made my teeth tinkle like glass, and nearly tugged my miserable hangies off. Gallen didn't swim, she just dunked in and out. With her hair wet, I saw how sleek her head was. Her ears were a little funny - too long, and even pointed, slightly. Her jaw was trembly from the cold. When she climbed out, her bra was full of water. In such the nicest way, she squeezed herself; she sort of wrung out her breasts and made her bra cling to her. Then she saw me watching her and she danced over the bank, back to me, conscious of how tightly her huggies hugged her.

  I came up the bank, forced to walk somewhat apelike because my frotting hangies were stuck all over me, almost down to my knees. And when she saw what a figure I cut, she laughed at my vain bones. 'I think you need smaller-sized hangies,' she said.